It is no surprise. But while Hamas' West Bank and Gaza leadership is making noise about accepting a sort of long-term ceasefire with Israel, their external leadership and the leadership of Islamic Jihad are rejecting it.

Islamic Jihad is completely funded by Iran and is their proxy in the West Bank and Gaza. Hamas is split between its top leadership based in Damascus and its local leadership based in the West Bank and Jordan. While the local leadership may be more attuned to the exhaustion of the Palestinians, they are devestated by Israeli crackdowns and the money is controlled by the Damascus faction which is tight with Iran and Syria.

Don't bet on a cooling off from that quarter any time soon.

A frequent criticism of European counter-terror is that the European governments will target operational terror cells - but not logistical cells that raise money and otherwise support terror activity. Sometimes this is explained by the governments insisting that the logistics networks are providing humanitarian relief not funds for violence (aiding this fiction many logistics cells do operate under the auspices of an Islamic charity.)

Fortunately, this is changing. German police recently raided over 34 sites throughout the country connected to the al-Aqsa charity which raises money for Hamas (not the al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade).

The Columbian government recanted its recent allegation that the FARC targeted President Bush during his visit to Cartagena, Columbia to meet with Columbia's President.

This came out several days ago and I did not post it because my web access was down.)

That being said - this does not mean that the FARC is not dangerous or anti-American. This incident illustrates the "Crying wolf" problem in intelligence. Providing a warning that turns out to be false only delegitimates later warnings.

In a sense, the real protection against the FARC is their drift away from being an ideological organization towards being little more than criminals. Consequently, anti-American terror is irrelevant to their primary goal of shipping drugs and people to the U.S. This is a thin reed to rely on to insulate the U.S. from the FARC's violence. Ideology could re-surface, they can play a role in destabilizing Columbia and the countries around it, their criminal activities are dangerous in their own right, and finally they could assist other terrorist groups seeking to attack the U.S. like Hezbollah or al-Qaeda.

Columbia’s Defense Minister claims that the narco-terrorist FARC (the Western hemisphere’s most powerful terrorist group) was going to attempt to assassinate President Bush during his recent visit to Cartagena, Columbia. In Cartegena Bush met with Columbia’s President Alvaro Uribe to discuss the expansion of U.S. aid to Columbia.

Neither Columbian nor U.S. security has provided any evidence of the plot but it is certainly conceivable. The FARC has made attempts on President Uribe’s life before. Because U.S. aid has been effective and is starting to hurt the FARC, they have also targeted Americans in Columbia. Finally, a quick look at the FARC website shows that they are viciously anti-American Marxists (the English language section is bad, the Spanish section is worse.) Adding this all up – targeting the President of the U.S. is just a small step from the FARC’s current activities.

I have written about the likelihood of the FARC going international and even targeting the U.S. Homeland before, here and here.

It is the paradox of effective counter-terror. When fighting a large, well-funded organization like the FARC – wounding them may, in the short run, lead them to undertake more deadly and dramatic activities. There is a precedent here – the Egyptian Islamists of al-Jihad turned against the United States after their efforts against the Egyptian government failed and they concluded that this was due to U.S. support. The Algerian Islamists took their war to France because French support was so essential to the Algerian regime. The Tamil Tigers assassinated India’s Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in response to India’s intervention in Sri Lanka.

If the FARC is turning against the United States they bring a number of deadly assets to their effort. As a leading narcotics manufacturer and smuggler (with an important side interest in people smuggling) the FARC is more than capable of inserting equipment and operatives into the U.S. They have received coaching on urban warfare and explosives design from the IRA and they are forming suicide attack squadrons.

The FARC is also embedded in an international network of criminal and anti-American activity. The FARC has long-standing relationships with the various terrorists of the far-left – from the Tamil Tigers to the Palestinians – and is believed to have cooperated with Hezbollah as well. The FARC is also linked to criminal organizations around the world and is acquiring an important strategic ally in Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

The FARC may not target the U.S. themselves, they may instead support Hezbollah operations. Regardless, the Middle East has been the central front in the war on terror – but unfortunately Latin America may be moving off the back burner.

Saad al-Din Ibrahim, Egypt (and arguably the Arab world)'s leading human rights activist is planning to run for President of Egypt. He will not win, of course. Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak has controlled the country since 1981 and is gearing up for a fifth term. In the Arab world elections are more akin to inaugurations - vast public ceremonies to recognize the ruler.

Ibrahim will not win, but it will be a great platform for him to promulgate the values of democracy. He is perhaps the only person in Egypt who can contemplate taking this step. The Egyptian government has already imprisoned him on trumped up charges (something like "tarnishing Egypt's reputation") and been excoriated internationally for it. It would be difficult for the Egyptian government to lock him up a second time.

No doubt the Egyptian government will try to make things difficult for him, but hopefully the United States and other democracies can put pressure on the Mubarak regime to make certain Ibrahim is treated appropriately.

This is a big moment for the biggest Arab state. Adroit American diplomacy can help plant seeds for democracy along the Nile.

Last week in Israel Palestinian-Canadian Jamal Akkal entered a guilty plea to charges of receiving training and planning terror attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets in Canada. It looks like he'll serve about four years.

Akkal was originally arrested in late 2003. He had moved to Canada in 1999 and had apparently returned to Gaza to get married. But he also sought out Hamas training.

I've written about the significance of Akkal previously. It is unclear if this is a harbinger of Hamas going global or alternately an individual seeking out Hamas to enable them to carry out terror attacks. Neither is a good sign. For the latter, consider the Mike's Place attack in Tel Aviv. A pair of British citizens of Pakistani descent traveled to Damascus where they were recruited by Hamas. This trend of Hamas (joining al-Qaida and other terrorist groups) recruiting Muslims who are citizens of Western countries is worrisome.